Oh, where to begin… when I decided to make a trip to Scotland to visit an old and cherished friend, I decided to take a chance at making a new one. I’ve been at this anti-sexual violence thing for a minute now, and as part of that, I do my best to keep tabs on the men and women doing incredible work in that space. At some point in the past few months, I came across Jessica Eaton by way of Twitter. She had written this post on gender equity and I loved it. I had seen some of her tweets flit across my timeline, too. And I knew she was my kind of badass.
In that weird way Twitter makes us think we have a sense for someone we’ve never met in person, I reached out to Jessica about a possible meet up for when I’d be in the UK. And then, I waited, feeling all sorts of vulnerable.
Jessica replied that she’d love to meet up and that if I could get to Birmingham instead of trying to meet her in London, we’d have a deal. So, I flew to London last week. And almost as soon as I landed, I was sprinting to catch The Tube out of Heathrow in order to make my rail line connection in Euston Station. I felt slightly dehydrated and sleep deprived, but this is what one must do when trying to know the best and brightest in the field, no matter where they live.
Jessica was gracious enough to meet me in the Birmingham train station to keep my suitcase schlepping to a minimum. When we sat down, conversation came easily, as I suspected it would. I shared with her what I’ve been doing, and I interviewed her about her work. I will attempt to share that interview here, across two additional posts, this week.
Everyone should get to know Jessica. She is 28 and SHE HAS SEEN SOME THINGS in her day. Furthermore, she’s a straight shooter and smart as a whip. While I work on organizing my posts, please check her out on Twitter ar @Jessicae13Eaton or at her blog: victimfocus.org.uk or, check out her brand new book co-authored with Claire Paterson-Young, The Little Orange Book. I got my very own signed copy. That alone was worth my Heathrow hustle to Birmingham.
A Fight Back Woman 